So … Where are we now?

As a (very) late bloomer, I have discovered how important it is to not only plan my progress toward pre-identified goals, but to periodically evaluate how satisfactorily I’m actually making progress. This year I set out to work on my watercolor skills, to explore and identify my “style,” and to discover who I am—what my role is—as an artist.

The first goal—learning, developing, and polishing skills—is an ongoing process that will never be complete, as long as I can lift a brush and continue to challenge myself. With conscious effort put toward improving my understanding and development of specific skills, I hope that they have been improving this year, with my work more consistently displaying higher quality. But I wonder if my focus on one area has allowed me to become lax in others. A periodic flop warns me that I’m not infallible and there is still plenty of room for improvement.

I have also come to recognize characteristics of my personal style and what elements of others’ art particularly influence my own work, which increases my confidence that, in general, I’m on the right track.

The third goal, discovering my role as an artist, has been more elusive. So that is another realm that I hope to explore more rigorously in the coming months. Certainly I think of myself as a teacher and encourager of others. But what is the underlying drive and purpose of my own artwork? I have long recognized that the concept for each piece and my inspiration to paint go hand in hand. But less clear has been what might be the consistent, overriding similarity in purpose that compels me to paint anything. This is a question to which I’ve gradually been finding answers. More about that next time.